What am I doing wrong?

[MulletManTim]

I would honestly like to know what I'm missing here. I can't seem to get Combat spec to perform like other sentinels in my guild and I would like to think that I have enough gear to break into the low 2000s on DPS. Am I using too much of one ability? Too little? Is my rotation wrong?

 

Any help you guys could offer would be fantastic.

 

Here is my current build:

http://swtor.askmrrobot.com/character/e1d36ec5-a4d9-4ad9-9c23-c3aac91e7947

 

Here is my best Combat parse:

http://www.torparse.com/a/239656

[Mr_Fuzzle]

I would honestly like to know what I'm missing here. I can't seem to get Combat spec to perform like other sentinels in my guild and I would like to think that I have enough gear to break into the low 2000s on DPS. Am I using too much of one ability? Too little? Is my rotation wrong?

 

Any help you guys could offer would be fantastic.

 

Here is my current build:

http://swtor.askmrrobot.com/character/e1d36ec5-a4d9-4ad9-9c23-c3aac91e7947

 

Here is my best Combat parse:

http://www.torparse.com/a/239656

 

A few things jump out at me right off the bat, for one, your build is more suited to PVP than PVE. Since you lack expertise on your gear, I'm assuming you are more of a PVE guy. This build is much more suited to a PVE environment. However it's not the source of your problems.

 

http://swtor.askmrrobot.com/skills/sentinel#320-1233002210221212023232-23

 

Next up, your APM are very low for Combat. You're sitting around 41 while to get the max out of this spec, you should be somewhere around 47-48 depending on RNG. Here is a link to a rather exceptional parse for comparison's sake.

 

http://www.torparse.com/a/231786/1/0/Damage+Dealt

 

Notice his opener is much different than yours. This would be because you don't take advantage of one of your abilities which is to use your out of combat heal to build Centering before the fight. Ideally your opener should be something along the lines of Leap > Zealous > Zen + Valorous Call + Inspiration > Precsion Slash > Blade Rush x3 > Blade Storm (if Opportune Attack has procced). From here it becomes a question of what has procced. So if you have a Hand of Justice proc available, throw another Precision Slash > Master Strike > Dispatch. If not, start building Focus so you can maximize your output for the next Precision Slash window.

 

A glaring mistake on your part is that you aren't using the abilities that do maximum damage during your Precision Slash windows. You are using Cauterize far too often and during Precision Slash. Cauterize is a filler at best and does not do enough damage up front to warrant its use during PS. Your priority for what to use during PS is as follows.

 

1. Blade Storm with Opportune Attack

2. Dispatch

3. Blade Rush with Zen

4. Master Strike

5. Blade Rush

6. Twin Saber Throw

7. Anything else

 

If you are going to use Master Strike always use it first in the Precision Slash window so that the final tick goes off inside the window. Everything you do in this spec revolves around having enough focus to do the maximum damage during Precision Slash and proccing Precision Slash as often as possible.

 

Finally, your gearing is interesting to say the least. Spend some time getting the companion buffs (maximize all of their affections) to get 1% increases to Accuracy, Crit, Surge, Endurance and healing received. This way you won't need so many points of Accuracy. Additionally, you seem to be augmenting for Accuracy and Surge. This is foolish, your augments should be Overkill Augment 28s, all of them. You have one Quick Savant enhancement, get rid of it Alacrity has no place in Sentinel gearing at this time. Your other enhancements seem to be of the high Endurance variety, this is a waste of stats for Sentinels, try your best to get the high Power/Crit enhancements. These ones are called Adept (Power/Surge), Battle (Crit/Surge), Acute (Crit/Acc), and Initiative (Power/Acc). Once you do all these things, you'll only need about 210 points for Accuracy, and the rest in Surge. From various parses people have been doing, the difference between 0 crit rating and 200 crit rating seems to be fairly negligible, so don't worry about that so much, just stack as much Power as possible.

 

Hope this helps!

[MulletManTim]

That helps a TON! Thanks for the detailed feedback. I will certainly take a look at my rotation and see if I can find a way to take your advice there.

 

I'm nowhere near done with gearing, I've just have extremely bad luck with drops from 55 HM FPs and OPs. It makes it quite a bit harder to min/max when you're having to buy everything with comms (also doesn't help that the DPS queues aren't really popping often, either).

 

Thanks again!

[jaidenrae]

Thanks on the write up from me as well. I was asked to try combat for hm/nm ops instead of watchman and i was lost to say the least. i decided to try combat initially in a silly situation which was a WZ. i just got bored with focus tbh. i came into voidstar on the last round did 93k but went 0-12 thanks in part to 2 sorc 4 *** 1 agent 1 mara.needless to say i ate alot of stun sandwiches with a healthy snack of backstab. now, ive read a few post about priorites and such but wasnt having much luck. maybe it was just the stuns every 5 secs but i have a few questions. is the only way to tell if your abilities procced to look up by ur buffs? secondly, my opening went something like this

 

TST-Leap- Rebuke as i leap to help build focus- Zealous- PS- BR x 2 - BS

 

After that if i wasnt being stunned id try to hit dispatch/ PS+MS on CD

 

here is the build im currently using i believe ( im at work )

http://swtor.askmrrobot.com/skills/sentinel#320-1233222210221212123232-0

 

also what if anything is wrong with opening with TST instead of Leap? thanks in advance and ur guide kinda brought things into the light if you will. so thank you

 

also i run advanced might augs in my gear instead of the overkills u suggested. i decided to use the char creation tool on mrrobot and came up with this..

 

full might full power 7 might / 7 power

1598.9-1867.9 pri 1608.3-1877.3 pri 1603.6-1872.6

355.7-533.3 sec 355.7-533.3 sec 355.7-533.3

1059.9 bonus 1069.3 bonus 1064.6

100.86% accuracy 100.86% accuracy 100.86%

18.50% crit 17.55% crit 18.03%

73.93% surge 73.93% surge 73.93%

 

so i know people say not to mix augs but id go 7/7 to avoid the 95% loss in crit. not like it matters since it was an aug comparison but the gear was min/maxed kell dragon gear with power/surge/ accuracy, all str / end ( including +10) and a nano infused might stim. Thoughts?

Edited May 31, 2013 by jaidenrae
added info

[MulletManTim]

OK, so here is an update on my build. I am still working on gearing (mostly augments) but I believe it is much closer to where I am supposed to be.

 

http://swtor.askmrrobot.com/character/9e9fd1c3-12c6-46dc-9c75-0aa139f95c6f

 

Here is a link to my best Combat spec parse:

http://www.torparse.com/a/276077

 

And here is one where I tried to closely follow directions on priority and CDs:

http://www.torparse.com/a/276123

 

As you can see, my APM is still very low, but I'm not sure what I need to do to raise it. I'm popping Zen almost every time it's up (mostly trying to time it with PS to squeeze an extra attack in the window). I'm not able to get 4 attacks to go off in the PS window and that's while I'm spamming the buttons on my NAGA. In fact, I'm getting more animation freakouts while Zen is active than when it is not, so it seems like not popping Zen is actually faster about half the time. My latency hovers between 61-63ms. Not the greatest in the world, but certainly good enough to not drop every other packet.

 

Just for reference, here is a standard Watchman spec parse with similar animation lag issues:

http://www.torparse.com/a/276140

[atschai]

Try setting your ability delay to 1 sec in preferences and see if that helps with your lag issues.

Also, don't parse on the fleet dummy when more than 50 ppl are in your instance, better use the ship dummy.

Edited June 9, 2013 by atschai

[Ausgelebt]

OK, so here is an update on my build. I am still working on gearing (mostly augments) but I believe it is much closer to where I am supposed to be.

 

http://swtor.askmrrobot.com/character/9e9fd1c3-12c6-46dc-9c75-0aa139f95c6f

 

Here is a link to my best Combat spec parse:

http://www.torparse.com/a/276077

 

And here is one where I tried to closely follow directions on priority and CDs:

http://www.torparse.com/a/276123

 

As you can see, my APM is still very low, but I'm not sure what I need to do to raise it. I'm popping Zen almost every time it's up (mostly trying to time it with PS to squeeze an extra attack in the window). I'm not able to get 4 attacks to go off in the PS window and that's while I'm spamming the buttons on my NAGA. In fact, I'm getting more animation freakouts while Zen is active than when it is not, so it seems like not popping Zen is actually faster about half the time. My latency hovers between 61-63ms. Not the greatest in the world, but certainly good enough to not drop every other packet.

 

Just for reference, here is a standard Watchman spec parse with similar animation lag issues:

http://www.torparse.com/a/276140

 

http://www.torparse.com/a/276177

 

my latest parse missing 72 maindhand, implants, 1 relic, earpiece

 

 

 

what I can tell looking at your parse is: never have empty times between skills, if you don't have focus use strike

 

only use blade storm with precision slash+proc(100% crit)

always use click relic and attack adrenal when it is ready.

 

 

start your parse as follows build 30 zen->inspiration->force leap->zealous strike->valorous call->zen->attack adrenal+click relic->blade rushx3->blade storm/dispatch(depending on proc)->precision slash->master strike->blade storm/dispatch(depending on proc) then just follow priority queue

 

only use blade storm if proc(100% crit) and in precision slash window

use power proc relic(even if you only have the pvp one, which is easy to get)

 

don't ever delay precision slash, keep master strike on cd, use cauterize, use twin saber throw as filler(use on cd), use dispatch on cd, don't wait for zen to time up with precision slash use it whenever it is ready(even if you just use it to build focus)

you miss 10 apm thats a good 300-400dps

 

Usw your ships dummy, Fleet dummy lags

Edited June 11, 2013 by Ausgelebt

[Afieri]

I'll just jump in here with a quick tip:

 

You want to be activating PS as close to the end of the current GCD as possible so you get 4.5s of it being up as opposed to 3.5s if you activate it straight after your last ability. If you are a clicker, then you should at the very least keybind PS onto an easy to reach key, something like R or F. If you activate PS too early, you can shave the best part of 1.3s off the 100% Armor Pen. which will leave you with 2 attacks (or 3 if Zen) that hit hard.

 

Also with the "False GCD's" where you see the GCD activate but nothing happens, one of two solutions will work:

 

Turn your ability activation queue time to 0.25 or 0 and spam your keys to your heart's content

 

-- OR --

 

Dont spam your abilities while the GCD is in effect, you hit them once as the GCD ends.

 

Hopefully this helps out

[Threjyan]

If you follow the advices given in here, and with some practice you will be able to reach DPS in the Order of 2200. Trust me. I was doing the same mistakes as you did, But after some researching like you are doing , i managed to go from 1900 to 2250. With some training and learn to see your buffs and cooldowns and learn to trigger the abilities in the correct timing you will see that your DPS will rise. Just dont focus like Crazy in parsers cause a fight against a dummy is diferent from a fight within an ops or in PvP .

 

Now possíble a noob question: the maximuum affection bónus ONLY comes with ALL of the companions affection maximized? SO if this is true i can go to 101,23% in accuraccy..is it OK this value in mellee acuracy, or should it revolve around 100%?

Edited June 11, 2013 by Threjyan

[Ausgelebt]

If you follow the advices given in here, and with some practice you will be able to reach DPS in the Order of 2200. Trust me. I was doing the same mistakes as you did, But after some researching like you are doing , i managed to go from 1900 to 2250. With some training and learn to see your buffs and cooldowns and learn to trigger the abilities in the correct timing you will see that your DPS will rise. Just dont focus like Crazy in parsers cause a fight against a dummy is diferent from a fight within an ops or in PvP .

 

Now possíble a noob question: the maximuum affection bónus ONLY comes with ALL of the companions affection maximized? SO if this is true i can go to 101,23% in accuraccy..is it OK this value in mellee acuracy, or should it revolve around 100%?

 

 

I got 100,25%, fits good.